A room of one's own
by Konsla
Summary: Adela Gilbert was never meant to be Adela Gilbert, in fact, there was never meant to be an Adela Gilbert at all, but now she's here, can't leave really, and unbeknownst to her messing up the plot one death at a time. Kol/Oc. Edited as of May 23 2020.
1. The quick and the dead

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries. **

**This is the edited version of chapter one which I post today, May 23rd 2020, I have also deleted the rest of the chapters on this day for reasons that will be explained at the bottom.**

**For some reason it's saying it's updated which I did not mean to happen! Seriously! If you're an old reader feel free to just come back when the next chapter's out.**

**Less jumping around with characters in the following chapters. **

**Covers season 2 episodes 1-3.**

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Since the end of the freshman year, all Adela Gilbert could think of was dying. For sure she had seen her parents grave at least a dozen times in the dewy and wet elements that always brooded over the Mystic Falls Cemetery. And at least half of those times had been with Elena, who took great comfort in sitting, and writing, and doing much of anything at Grayson and Miranda Gilbert's permanent address. On Sundays Elena would wipe off any bird poop and pull out the weeds from the granite's perimeter leaving a line of bare earth where little bugs would peer out from like the root-free space had been made especially for them.

"I'd use weedkiller," Elena would say, "but that stuff is toxic, and I don't want it near their headstone."

Then Adela would nod, and say something entirely insignificant and not quite analogous like, "we better get something to cover it up in the winter or the water'll get in, freeze and make it crack."

And for the most part, that was all the Gilbert sisters would talk about when they visited their recently departed parents. Not much more was said in the rare occurrence of the Gilbert twins winding up at the cemetery at one time.

Jeremy, unlike Elena, had only visited Grayson and Miranda one and a half times, a half because he'd left early at the arranged funeral, right after they had been delivered into the ground. He had been upset that they were cremated, like the ancient Egyptians he felt that fire left too little of them. When she had first heard they were to be cremated, she had thought of the men of Jabesh burning the body of Saul under a tamarisk tree, or the funeral pyre of Hector, burnt before the gates of Troy, and the burning of Penthisilea, the Amazonian Queen. Same for the Sarmatias, or the Saxons, Jutes and Angles, or those who conceive that the end of natural life always lies in fire, like the self-immolation of the Indian Branchmans. Then she thought of the irony, drowned, then burnt, then buried. It was as if they were afraid that they would come to life again. Now that she thought about it maybe they were.

Those thoughts didn't matter. She could think all day about what could have been left behind; urns, mausoleums, sarcophagi, cenotaphs, or monuments. Monuments as the monument of King Childerick, the Ephesian Temple, the Rollright stones in England. That was all grand, and wonderful and would have been nice, but what they had was nice too, and what they had was a large dark granite headstone with a pyramidal shape at its apogee, and in front of the headstone, right between "Grayson" and "Miranda" in Trajan font was a tinsel doll that danced in the wind. That was death. And when Jeremy sauntered over one day smelling of sweat and cigarettes, that was death too.

It was over 90 degrees then, 90 degrees with a hot orange mist clinging to all the trees. They stood in a silence uninterrupted by insecurities, such as what to say or do, and breathed easily, for once unaffected by the humidity.

Jeremy had a severe look to him, one that said a lot more than any words could. Adela had turned her head to his shoulder, his clavicle digging into her crown. It was uncomfortable the same way as two differently-sized feet make walking an awkward affair. But they did not share discomfort, or comfort, or sadness or regret, only a bond, as unexplainable as the conversations they might have had while still in the womb. And over an hour later, around the same amount of time the funeral had left before Jeremy had abandoned it, they both departed. Separating effortlessly as Jeremy slunk back towards the woods to where Vicky Donovan was spraddle-legged and smoking outside of a tent.

Adela strolled through the rest of the cemetery with the cypresses, yew-trees, and gravestones. Flat slate filled half of the yard, markers from the civil war, and beside each was a tiny plastic American flag, a few Confederate. In the space below the earth, she could imagine wooden boxes fastened with brass pins, some hundred feet below that were hidden sepulchers of ancient rulers, and farthest below skimming a little above bedrock was evidence of the Triassic and the Great Dying(1) of nearly everything. With this in mind, Adela figured she knew a great deal about death, she had seen her parents buried, and she had been to their grave many times, yet she hadn't been with them when they died. Not like Elena had; maybe that's why the oldest Gilbert seemed to have the healthiest reaction to their demise, she was swimming through the stages of grief, Adela admired her sister for that. Jeremy coped with drugs and alcohol and girls who'd all become the love of his life if they let him in. And Adela, she skipped the denial, bargaining, and anger, and had found that her acceptance was to just get it over with and die right along with them.

It wasn't worth a damn, actually dying, but she got her wish half a year later when Damon snapped her neck. She had caught him and her sister necking, or at least she had thought they'd been necking if they had it would be a case of some great irony.

The world around her now had a grisaille effect, shades of grey and eggshell, and she felt a tumidity in her arms and across her chest like she was in space and her skin was stretching. Just then, a dark Chrysler passed her, and she learned looking down from where it came from to a yard of magnolias and old people, that she didn't know where she was. One of the branches was within reach so she snatched a flower with her fist and like a child, crushed it in her hand. It neither tore off the branch nor crumpled in her fingers. Instead it stayed, as lovely and plump as it would have in a picture, and her leg disappeared within the trunk when she kicked it. A small frustration aggrandized, and she tried to talk to the elderly people drinking cider out of small cups, but they didn't see or hear her, and she had to concentrate to a great degree to even hear them.

"My son is 33." A woman with grey hair and a wide sun hat fanned herself with a folded paper.

"How nice," the woman beside her spoke as she brought a cup to her lips. "You must be proud of him."

"It's a holy year, Jesus was crucified 33," she paused in her fanning. "I told him, 'Why don't you go back to Duke and find something to do?' and he told me that he was fine with the job he had, which is at a high school."

"There's no shame in men teaching children anymore."

"I agree, but he's smart. He should be doing something more with his degree."

"Maybe you're overestimating him," Adela said, but when no one heard her she tuned them out, and sat on the grass. It seemed to her that she had been right about dying, it wasn't worth a damn. She'd pay a visit to Jesus as a right of passage, and in honor of that woman's son.

**...**

As a former warlock, Kol had quite a bit to say about "The Other Side". It was as if the whole place had been built to mock him, or more accurately to rot on his everlasting vampirism. He was sure he had been put here for no greater purpose except for the desire from powerful witches to see how he'd work out the maze, only for him to discover that he'd been lead down the garden path and the final door was padlocked, the key magic, and his magic still gone, just as it was for 1000 years.

This was all Nik's fault. Or didn't he prefer to go by Klaus these days? None the matter, what did matter was that he was still daggered, it had been a year now, and even on The Other Side, a year felt like a year, and a year with nothing to entertain him felt particularly long.

The only positive was some of the things he had learned. For instance, everyone passes through the anchor to get to The Other Side, even if they're only here temporarily, and the anchor to his surprise, although thinking of it now he's not sure why he was surprised at all, was the doppelganger. Not Tatia, or Katerina, another one, he didn't know her name, and he didn't care either, but anchors were important, she had a foot in each side, and despite being desiccated, it gave The Other Side a door, one he could slip through. Unfortunately, he would need help from the real world, and that was seemingly impossible without magic.

Impossible was the wrong word, after all, Kol considered himself very much the quintessential "Renaissance man," and he found his own temperamental genius similar to the likes of Michelangelo's _terribiltà, _the sublime shadowed by the fearful- existence wizened by nature, he thinks, the essence of sublime. For it creates a reflection of response not starkly caused by nature, but it's powerlessness against it. Hadn't Michelangelo had a similar idea? He tries to remember, but the annals of his indefinite lifespan are full of errata which forgo any sense of assortment. It must look, he imagines, a little like the Laurentian Library with columns in pairs sinking into the walls or split around coroners, and scroll _corbels_ beneath them, pediments held through cornices and string courses, and pilasters that taper downwards instead of upwards, lastly the flowing stairway protrudes like a snakes tongue, splitting in two as it darts from the mouth of the doorway to the library. And who was it who openly flouted most of the classical rules of order and stability? Well of course Michelangelo, and only now Kol remembers what the daring innovator had said, that the divine power to "make man" is shared by the sculptors. Kol is almost assuaged that Nik had had him in a coffin during the Cinquecentro, for he would have most definitely eaten Michelangelo, just as he'd eaten Masaccio and Filippo Lippi, he always had an appetite for the exceptional.

_Well,_ he thinks, _I don't need my own magic to get out of here, and by the time I do the world will have had enough quiescence for it to cultivate many geniuses so that when I return they'll be plentiful at my banquet. _

But these thoughts are superfluous, and only cover the bitterness, which has outlasted anger, regret, and any stubborn fondness he had once held towards his siblings. He often toyed with the idea of killing Nik, but maybe trapping him here would be a better fate, Rebekah too. Of course, first he had to get out of here, and for that he'd need an uncorrupted connection to the world.

Kol was not thinking of these things when Adela Gilbert died, that really would have been magical.

It's 95 years later, in Vatican City, staring at the fresco of sinners awaiting their fate. The Last Judgment, by Michelangelo Buonarroti, and Kol, has almost given in to nature's natural scourge, and like his natural body grey with varicose veins, his thoughts on freedom and violent retribution had stalled. And he found nothing sublime about that.

"Terrifying, isn't it?" Someone asks.

Kol nearly jumps. Sometimes he hears witches, but they are never this clear, and never this close. The girl beside him is less than 3 feet away, and too young to be a decent witch. However, the fact that she is here disproves that, after all, only the most powerful witches can freely navigate The Other Side.

"Yes, terrifying." He answers briefly, trying to keep the sheer surprise out of his voice. He covers it up with a just as brief smile.

"I wonder what he was thinking when he painted this," she continues, and her hair slips over her shoulder when she moves her head. He can see her neck.

"It took over four years," his voice is not quite pleasant enough to hide its condescending tone. "He probably thought of many things."

"Maybe his next works then," if she noticed his irreverence she didn't show it. "Like Pieta, not the first one, the second unfinished one, meant for his own tomb... Do you know what pieta means? Well... it's just like English, pity. He left pity unfinished. No, he nearly destroyed it. Do you think that means that there's no pity left for the sinners being judged?"

Kol had little patience for pointless conversation.

"I mean," she said with a great amount of uncertainty. "Listen Mister, in 1923, Frothingham versus Mellon, Mellon was responding to the 1921 Maternity Act, which provided grants for the health and welfare of infants and their mothers. Most people were fine with that, just as most people are fine with paying for public education even if they don't have children, but he was saying that it was a result of taxation for illegal purposes. Ultimately, the court's decision was that suffering "in some indefinite way in common with people generally" was not an adequate basis for judicial review. It seems like a case of egoism from Mellon, yet it's conclusion closed the door on complaints towards unlawful expenditures by the CIA, unconstitutional state tax subsidies, along with public-interest issues. Sounds Malthusian, but that's a judgment that really happened, and I can't find any pity in it either."

Kol turned his head to the side and gave her a good look this time. Her dark brown hair appeared almost black in the poor light, and it fell over her shoulders then down the back of her light blue shirt. She had this look on her face that he couldn't decipher, but then again, Kol had never been top-notch with the finer feelings. He was good with intent, intuition seemed to improve the longer someone lived, and he had lived a very long time. From her he got the feeling that she was totally and astrophicallly wrong, and people who say something wrong, while knowing that they are wrong, can't be judged until they start saying what's right, but maybe that was the point. Even her own perceived judgment was simply two examples that she had pointed at and then drew a line between. That was all.

The mental gymnastics were exhausting. His brain was already choked.

"What are you here for?" He asked eventually.

"Well," she says with a wobbly sort of smile. "I've come to be judged."

"Haven't you ever heard," he tells her, "that mercy triumphs over judgment."(2)

"And yet," her smile is surer this time "it is only after a man dies that judgment comes."(3)

"Darling," he raised his arm like Christ on the wall. "That up there has got nothing to do with us," the supernatural he means, because of course only the supernatural can be _here. _"If what you've come for is consolidation," this is hypocrisy, it was what he has come for after all; "then you have mistaken your ability of interpretation as intellection."

There is a brief pause.

"On second thoughts," she moves her hair behind one ear. "I don't think my views have much effect."

Finally a seed of truth.

"Humility?" his smile turns sharper. "How quaint."

"Thanks," her mouth is covered by her hand. "Although, humbleness can come from pride. And that is not very...quaint."

"I guess we have different tastes,"

"Yes," she says with a note of finality.

She turns to walk away without looking back and he follows her because she's the first person he's seen in basically forever, and he has some questions. People on the other side could move fast, faster than vampires, they need only to imagine their destination with a clear mind. He simply imagined her face and felt himself being stretched out like spilled water until everything pooled back together and he could see things clearly again. Or at least, he thought he could see things clearly because what he saw wasn't making much sense at all.

There she was, the girl who'd he thought was a witch, and beside her was a doppelganger. It wasn't Tatia or Katrina, and certainly not the anchor, which could only mean she was the new doppelganger for this era. The girl who'd he been with wasn't a witch, he could tell that right away, but the ring on her finger definitely had magic. An uncorrupted connection to the world. He burst out in laughter. She was his ticket out.

**…**

In the halls, there was loud homage and jubilation towards the boys arm-wrestling on a tall oak table. White stage lights had been set up around them reflecting opaquely off their tensed forearms and behind them was a poster featuring the wrestling club. Adela had been drifting around the minor attractions of the carnival wanting to get a look at everything. Outside the lights were yellow, and there was dust over the tents, a clod of dirt had got stuck in her shoe when she had been visiting the booths, it made a small dent in her heel. Many of the booths had come to Mystic Falls before, to one of their hundred other parties, and everyone was always honored when the residents would recognize them and be extra hospitable. They'd even been giving out free moon pies to children and high schoolers, she had taken two, one for each hand. The backs of the tents were loud with the exhaust from blowers, and they had spread through the air the scent of sweet vanilla from the funnel cake truck, everything else smelled like deep-fried food. There was laughter over the crunches of popcorn and corn dogs, and children shrieking in the bouncy house. A small Ferris Wheel had been set up, and that's where all the sweethearts went, waiting for it to pause at the top, and to be at the highest point of all of Mystic Falls for a few brief moments.

Inside the high school the air was thick, and funhouse mirrors had been attached to several lockers. She looked at one and her body was transformed into an S-shape. It was louder than it was outside, because of the close quarters, and much of the noise came from the large rout that had gathered around the arm-wrestling. A semi-circle of cheerleaders hailed around them. Adela stopped nearby at a face painting station and got a purple butterfly on her left cheek. She spied Damon leaned against a brick pilaster, and smiled knowing that he'd seen her coming likely as soon as she'd entered the same hall.

"Adela, so good to see you alive," he had his sideways grin that always spoke of mischief.

"Bonafide Lady Lazareth," she raised both arms in a bent little crucifix.

"Death _is _cheap," his chin tilted upwards in thought, then tapped on her shoulder. "That ring's not even a one-trick horse."

"Cheap death... I'm a hero then, the real deal,"

He scoffs, "Don't tell me you're going to start running around in spandex now."

"Hey have some approbation."

"_For what_?"

"Well, first of all, I'd look great in spandex."

"No," he countered. "_I_ look great in spandex."

"What are you two talking about?" Stefan appeared from her other side, where a throng of people flowed to and from.

"Spandex," they both said simply.

His face arranged itself in the most interesting expression.

"Adela, what are you doing _here_?" He asked, and she knew what he meant, _here with Damon, _not here in general. Though she pretended as if she hadn't picked up the double meaning.

"What," she rose an innocent brow. "I'm not a misanthrope."

"Enter the uncle," Damon was looking at the Lockwoods who had both arrange themselves as competitors on the arm-wrestling tables.

"This is ridiculous," Stefan crossed his arms.

Adela wasn't sure what they were talking about, but Mason won in a matter of seconds. It wasn't surprising to her, Mason was an adult after all.

"All right, he's the champ," Tyler quickly dismissed his loss. "Who wants to go next?"

"Hey, uh, Stefan wants a go," Damon volunteered his brother automatically.

"Thanks," Stefan said dryly, then to the Lockwoods; "yeah sure, I'll uh, I'll give it a shot."

"Get him Stef," Damon gave a few weak claps.

They rang the brass ringside boxing bell to signal the start, and for several moments neither Stefan's nor Mason's arm moved either way. But that didn't last for long, and Stefan must have stopped all movement in his arm because it looked limp after Mason had slapped it against the table.

"You didn't put in any effort," Damon scathed. "_At all."_

"Yeah, actually, I did."

"Come with me," Damon gestured his brother to go down the hall, but before he did he paused, and put a hand on Adela's shoulder. There was a silent apology. She looked at him from under her lashes and gave a small nod.

**…**

Let it be said here that Bonnie Bennet _did not _like vampires. In fact, if it weren't for Stefan Salvator, the only acceptable vampire by her own moral judgment, then she'd probably hate vampires. And even still, she was of the own private opinion that vampires, and humans could never get along, that went double for witches.

In spite of her feelings Stefan had asked her to make a day walking ring for Caroline, and she had sat in The Grill for over an hour after he left thinking it over. Her fingers thrummed over the hickory wood tables, and her nails scratched into the surface, leaving little white lines invisible to the naked eye. She felt more comfortable here than in her own home, The Grill was filled with good memories, and her house just had the sadness of loss. It had long overstayed its welcome, and she was getting sick of it. But alone as she was now, the awareness of her suppressed sentiments grew.

"Hey," she called out so abruptly she had shocked her self, and Adela Gilbert who'd been walking by gave her a nod a pulled up a chair.

"You're on Stefan's tab?" the younger girl asked looking at the bill.

"Yeah," Bonnie said, not yet seeing where Adela was going with this.

"Well that's nice, I can order whatever I want," Adela called Matt over and got a sundae.

"So," Bonnie started again after Matt left. "How are you feeling? After...well, you know…"

"I don't know," Adela says not unkindly, but with so much uncertainty that Bonnie felt she couldn't ask her again, and changed the subject.

"Your sister stopped me from killing Damon yesterday," she says this quietly. She had unknowingly omitted Elena's name. "I guess it wasn't all his fault for Caroline."

"I hadn't heard."

"Caroline's a vampire now," Bonnie said with a great amount of disappointment.

"Maybe it's for the best."

"You can't be serious," Bonnie rebuked. "Becoming a vampire can never be for the best."

"I'm always serious with you Bonnie," her sundae arrived and she freed a spoon from its plastic jacket. "We're rather alike in some ways."

"In what way?" Bonnie asked doubtfully, crossing her arms on top of the table.

"We can both be...judgemental."

"Is this about Caroline's day walking ring?" Bonnie affronted. "Did Stefan ask for you to talk to me?"

"No," she said candidly. "I hadn't been aware you could make a ring."

"Well I probably can," Bonnie said. "But that doesn't mean I will."

"Why not?"

"Because she might kill someone again!"

"She probably will," Adela agreed. "Eventually, I mean, she's immortal now, for the most part."

"Then you don't think I should do it."

Adela put her spoon down and thought for a moment, her head resting on her hand, then she asked, " are you familiar with Lady Justice?"

Bonnie shook her head 'no'.

"Mr. Guillermin talks about her all the time- you know how he used to be a lawyer. Anyways, he always says that Lady Justice reminds everyone in the court about what justice is. Her set of scales represent the evidence being weighed, and she's blindfolded to show impartiality, that there is no regard towards external factors, such as wealth and status. Like when a person's heart is weighed against the feather of truth, and they confess all their sins and say 'I am pure, I am pure,' but if their heart is heavier, Amut a crocodile faced god, will eat their heart and soul." Adela wiped her hands on a napkin. "But this isn't a court case, and there aren't any kind of confessions happening. If you weigh the evidence based on what we know on vampires, and what she's done so far, you probably shouldn't make her the ring. But I don't think this is something to look at without prejudice; we know Caroline enough to take off the blindfold and make our own judgments on her, not based on the facts, but on who she is."

Bonnie, felt a great responsibility then. As if she had been the judge, weighing the scales, and her head had stretched out, as long as a crocodile's, and it felt as if the blood from that boy the other day was in her throat. But when she opened her eyes she only saw Caroline's face, and it wasn't covered in blood like yesterday, it was the Caroline from the beginning of the school year before any of them knew things like this could happen.

"That's terrible advice," Bonnie told her.

"Is it terrible because you already know what you want to do?"

"No," she disagreed. "It's terrible because it actually helped me make up my mind."

"Your right, that is terrible." Adela finished the last of her sundae."By the way, can I borrow that skirt you wore the other day? It looked really cute."

The weight on her chest felt a little lighter,"sure."

…

Jenna had cooked breakfast up and for once the only person missing was Elena. She had gotten in a silver Chevy with Alaric and Damon, and they'd all gone off to Duke together to pick up his wife's, and Elena's biological mother's, research.

She flipped a square of shredded potatoes, one side a crispy golden. Jeremy and Adela were sitting at the table peeling boiled eggs.

"I tried whittling-" Jenna heard Jeremy say to his sister over the sizzling of oil.

"Oh, how'd it go?"

"Not very well," he admitted. "Do you have vervain?"

"Yes," she replied. "I drink it in tea."

"I can't believe Damon," he seethed. "I swear I'm going to-" he paused noticed where they were and quietened. Jenna stretched her arms over her head, leaning back a little more.

"Has he said anything to you?" Jeremy said in a near whisper, Jenna lower the heat on the stove.

"We talked at the carnival," she sat a peeled egg on two sheets of paper towels. "He seemed regretful."

"Seemed regretful," Jeremy intoned satirically. "That asshole-"

"Ehmm," Jenna dished out three servings of potatoes."Why are you two talking about Damon so much?"

There was hot ketchup on the side of the shiny glazed plates.

"Oh… well, you know," Adela grabbed a fork "… he's an interesting guy."

"Well, I don't think so," Jenna cut an egg in half with a table knife. "He's a creep, like Logan Fell."

Jeremy and Adela shared a look over the table from the situational irony in that statement. "Yeah."

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**….**

**1- The Permian-Triassic extinction event, where nearly 90-96% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrates became extinct.**

**2- referring to James 2:13**

**3- referring to Hebrews 9:27**

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**IMPORTANT: If you are new to this story feel free to skip. However, if you are an old reader please read this. This is the new edited version of chapter 1. I have changed many things, including 94% of the text, and all of the scenes. I did not post this as an update, because it not very long and I felt that would have been unfair even though it is all new content. But for some reason, it's saying it's updated...I have also deleted the rest of the chapters, because they simply wouldn't make sense after reading this, and I don't like them either. The next chapter will be an update since I won't be able to edit a chapter that no longer exists. So I will be making the next chapter much longer, a lot like the original chapter 2, however, it will also cover MANY more episodes. Likely all the way to season 3. Yes, I know that seems like a lot and if you don't think it reads well or you can't understand where it is in the timeline (because I think many readers are not as familiar with the show) please let me know in the reviews. Also, please let me know if you think the edits are better, and have made this more easy and enjoyable to read. After rereading the entirety of the old version, I realized that I had forced the MC into way too many canon scenes just for the sake of have a timeline, but it made it a lot worse and it also made her personality quite strange. **

**Thank you for reading!**


	2. Who does it, then? His madness

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries**

**Covers season 2 episodes 4-8**

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They'd been sitting in the drive-through of Whataburger sharing a water bottle that was half ice from staying in the car overnight. The mid-Atlantic had been getting a polar front, which brought on dry thunderstorms and lightning that struck the J.E.B. Stuart tree 3 days ago. It was the tallest tree in the municipal and it had split in half, a large branch falling on the Aaron glen's recreational facility, and moving everything that was being stored for the upcoming masquerade ball into the Lockwood mansion. It made the headlines in the local paper and was all anybody was talking about. Volunteers had to be wrangled by the dozens to pull out all the antiques and antiquates up out of the drawing-room and into the parlor. Then to hull over all the tables and chairs and silverware with cloth napkins by the truckload. By the end of the three days, the Lockwood estate was so filled with decorative items that just walking by it would make a minimalist sick from the opulence bordering on profligacy. Adela was just glad she had gotten out of it and didn't have to do any work. In the car, Elena turned the heater to full blast and Adela folded the gum in her mouth into a piece of notebook paper.

"Don't leave that in _my_ car," Elena told her with a grimace.

"Your car? Well, you owe me 20 bucks so let's call it square."

"What?"

"You know the rules," Adela told her. "Whoever uses it last has got to fill it at least halfway. Well, I used it the other day and I barely had enough to get to the gas station."

"Oh, sorry."

The car in front of them pulled out of the line. School had ended less than 10 minutes ago and going to eat afterward was common enough each day that it was always busy at this time. In middle school, she and Jeremy had ridden their bikes up every day for a month trying to order from the window without being in a car. They'd always wondered how the employees knew they were on bikes when they spoke into the receiver. Apparently, they had cameras outside, that and they could tell their voices were way too young to be driving. Elena had never gone with them. She always had older friends who could drive her places.

"Stefan and I are fighting," Elena commented mildly, turning her grip on the wheel.

"You can change the subject, just don't forget to pay me."

"Yeah, okay, I got it," Elena said a little agitated. "But, with Katherine...I just don't know if we should be together. It's not safe."

"Umm, I guess so," Adela nodded, riffling through her backpack for school work and a pencil. "We're almost at the window, I want a cinnamon roll and onion rings."

"You are useless," Elena pivoted her torso, eyebrows drawn together in hostility. "How is it that you know less than Jenna?" Elena looked at her cooly, a curl growing on the edge of her lips. "Now I'm glad that I kept her around."

"You must be, uh," she thought for a moment. "Katherine?"

Her sister's look-a-like sent her an unimpressed glare.

"I'll put this plainly so you can understand," Katherine pulled into the parking lot, facing the car towards the long barren fields, far beyond which was her neighborhood, and her house and the real Elena skipping school with Stefan. "You see," Katherine started again looking in the mirror of the sun visor. "I need a werewolf, and I've lost the one that I had, so you're going to help me get a new one."

She leaned forward and Adela leaned back; her shoulder blades hitting the window.

"Hey, hey I'm on vervain," She said more to inform her than as any sort of defense. She wasn't inane enough to think she could take on a vampire in any fashion.

"Please, I'll flush it out of you in half an hour," Katherine opened her door. "Come on, we're going inside."

Adela followed a few steps behind. There was no way she could outrun a vampire, and as they entered the restaurant she knew she couldn't make a scene either, there were too many people around, and all of them were likely compellable. It was better to play Katherine's game than to start her own. They sat at a table near the bathroom, children behind her kicking on the back of the seat. And for the past 20 minutes, she'd been chugging enough water to make her throw up while answering the seemingly endless questions Katherine threw at her. Things like; _do I look more like Elena with straight hair? What do you think about this outfit? It's dull enough, isn't it? _She answered with, _yes_, _it's alright_, and _it could be a little duller._

"Why are we doing this in public?" Adela asked eventually, swallowing a large gulp.

Katherine leaned forward again, it had started to drizzle outside, there was another thunderstorm coming, this one with rain.

"Why do you think?" Katherine put her hands on top of the table.

Adela managed to maintain a proper poker face at the unexpected question, but she could feel a tightness growing between her brows as she thought of what to say. "To trap me... by social conventions."

"Are all you Gilberts so swell-headed?" She looked down at her nails.

"Then for yourself," Adela decided.

"Warmer," she purred.

Adela paused at that, not at the general phrase but its implication, Katherine actually wanted her to guess, wanted her to get it right. It was a test in syllogism and logical reasoning. _Public spaces mean people, people mean safety, therefore public spaces are safe. _That was what it seemed, but of course, she was the furthest thing from safe at the moment. And while people generally meant safety, it was as a group when humans committed their worst crimes. She wondered how much Katherine could do to her before anyone would stop her or notice. Bringing her inside the restaurant hadn't been about _restraining _her, nor had it been about making threats with the people around them, rather it showed her without having to say a word that there was no winning to be done here.

The Machiavellian gall was almost admirable. Katherine smiled wickedly, her nose scrunching up in a way that Elena's hadn't since she was a child and crying over some broken toy. And though she knew it wasn't possible, Adela was sure she'd just looked into her head, read out her whole thought process with an appraising tone, then threw her head back and laughed.

"You don't look like Elean now," she told her, taking another sip.

"I'm not trying to look like her now," Katherine said, taking the cup of water out of her hands. "Now listen to what you need to do."

…

The real trouble of that night started when Caroline heard Matt and Tyler fighting. By this time Katherine was with Stefan and Damon, and Caroline was just beginning to enjoy the ball. A single hand smoothed down her red velvet dress, and she gave it a little tug at the bottom where her mother had said it rode up too much. Not that Caroline minded, it was a warm night that had dried up quickly from yesterday's wetness, and the sweet twilight air made her feel good. Lilting music floated dreamily through rooms and around the crystal chandeliers in the ballroom all the way down to the fake potted plants of palms and ficuses.

She passed a swan-necked woman with an ostrich feather sticking out of her dress and kept walking until the heartbeat in her ears quietened. She'd be able to hear everyone's heartbeat if she listened closely, but the cacophony would be too much to bear. It was then when she heard the first sign of alarm. Tyler was shouting upstairs, "Get off! Get off me!"

The most difficult part of getting there was separating herself from the crowd. Running at vampire speed in a group of people promised a spectacular crash and burn. She pushed her way past a posse of men dressed in blues and blacks coming out of the tea room that had been filled with enormous pink roses and powdery pastries. At its door, she didn't bother for them to completely disappear from sight and at the crack of a whip she was at Mayor Lockwood's old office. Inside Matt and Tyler were tangled in a wrestle.

"What is going on?!" She shouted from the door, momentarily stunned to idleness. "Stop!"

She pulled Matt off first, tossing him to the ground with little effort.

"Stop!" She shouted again when he got back up and planted a hand on his chest so he couldn't move forward any further.

"I can't!" He griped. "Let me go! I have to finish!"

"What the hell's wrong with you?!" Tyler complained from behind Caroline, he didn't protest against the space she'd cleared between them, and the anger in him towards Matt was not the kind that urged him to continue fighting.

"Let me go!" Matt yelled again and he kept struggling against Caroline's arm until she pushed him back and elbowed him in the nose. Lights went out for Matt, and he went down fast. No one cared about his harsh landing, Tyler too shocked with Caroline's strength, and Caroline too angry that she had to use it in the first place. Once they both realized they'd been staring at each other Caroline broke away her gaze.

"Matt! Matt!" She cried and kneeled down by him patting his chest as if it would wake him up. She could hear his heart beating and if she'd been paying better attention she would have heard another heart beating too, a hollow metronome-like pitter-patter, set to a single interval and unable to change from the path it was moving.

"How did you-" Tyler started but sucked in a gust of breath as he was stabbed in the shoulder. Behind him, Adela Gilbert struggled to get the letter opener to stick in. She didn't have long as Tyler whirled around and shoved her onto the floor, her head hitting the corner of his father's desk with a terrible thump.

"Oh my god," Caroline hadn't even noticed that she was here until she was lying on the ground dead in a plum-colored dress that glinted from sequin filigree in spirals and lattice. For a moment she thought Adela was dead for real.

"No, no, no. Come on. Wake up!" Tyler crouched by her body, speaking in fragments through the pain in his shoulder. A vein was comically popping out of his forehead, but there was nothing funny about this, especially not to Tyler, who's face had now distorted into a tortured expression with the realization that he had not only just killed someone, but it was Jeremy's twin sister who'd he's just started to get along with. "This can't happen. This can't be happening."

"Tyler!" Caroline spotted the ring on Adela's finger and let out a sigh. "It's fine, it's okay, she's alive."

Tyler was shaking his head. As soon as he killed her he'd known, he'd felt something deep inside, some feral vicious instinct that crooned in pleasure, relishing in the hurt he'd given. The intelligible part of him was telling him to cut-and-run, get out of there, let someone else clean it up, _don't let anybody know what you did. _But then Caroline was there, and suddenly he could hear her speaking, although she had been speaking all this time telling him it was alright, _Oh, yes it's fine, just a bump on the head. _All her assurances were ineffectual as he bolted up and backed away.

"Arggh!" Tyler groaned sharp pains like his muscles were cramping all over. "Get away, Get away."

His face burst with color and his eyes snapped gold.

Caroline lost all hope for him being saved from the curse then. It didn't matter that Adela would be brought back later, she was dead now, and that was all the lycanthropy needed.

"Sh-she's alive okay!" Caroline said one more because she couldn't very well have Tyler know Adela was dead now, only for her to be resurrected in a few hours.

"We got to take her to the hospital," Tyler panted as he stood.

"No, no, I'll just take her home," Caroline argued. "She's fine, she just needs to rest."

"Rest?! Caroline, she could have brain damage!"

"She's fine Tyler!"

"Well I can't risk that!"

"What's going on here? I can hear you from downst-" Carol Lockwood gasped from the doorframe, nearly falling over herself when she saw both Adela and Matt passed out on the ground. "What happened?!"

"Ahaha, oh, they're just passed out drunk, Mrs. Lockwood," Caroline said immediately, hefting Adela into her arms. "Uh, Tyler you can get Matt up, right?" She didn't wait for him to respond, passing Mrs. Lockwood with a strained smile and leaving as quickly as she came. Really now, why'd all the trouble have to start when everyone else but her was held up? Caroline would never know.

…

"Hello darling."

Adela looked up in surprise. She thought it was funny that she hadn't remembered this man until now, he was decidedly unique, and in that sense unforgettable wearing a single-breasted suit and an off-white cravat that matched his gloves. On his feet, she found spats and his buttons looked like ivory but she was sure they were celluloid. She half expected him to pull out a pince-nez and a pocket watch.

"Hello," she said, patting her sides as she stood up. She was in a ridiculously short dress. It looked like something she might have worn when she was 14 and trying to look nice for Julian Feinsilber, who played the violin across from her in the orchestra. He kept looking at her, so she asked him, "why are _you_ wearing that?" To draw his attention away.

"Same as you," he said. "I was at a...party."

He then told her all about it. From the French folk dances like Gavotte and Bal-musette to the Baroque paintings and gardens which were filled with snow at the time, but still unbelievably beautiful. Not a bad place to die, and he said he's died halfway through the night, the taste of bubbling champagne still springing in the back of his throat.

He pointed out across the lawn, which stretched close to 2 acres from the Lockwood mansion. A hedge maze, with perennial trees and ornamental plants at every corner, was to the right of her, at the back of the mansion. Beyond that was big bluestem growing 2 meters tall. There was always deer in there, and Mrs. Lockwood was just beginning to put out salt blocks as spring came along. The whole gamut was rimmed by a wall of trees that led into the wilderness, the old Lockwood estate hidden in its darkness. They were sitting close to the perimeter, on a metal bench under a line of sweetgum trees. If they were to have looked closer at the bench they would have seen its plaque of commemoration made out to a George Lockwood.

In the front of the mansion, where he was pointing, was a three-tier cast stone fountain. "There was a pond in front of my family's estate," he told her, still pointing. "It had one of those fountains that shot up water like a geyser going off."

"There were some swans and cygnets around there too," he said, then smiled tellingly putting his arm down. "The girls liked to look at them."

"All of them nymphomaniacs," he glanced slyly. "Of course I can tell you're not that kind of girl."

She said nothing to that.

"Sorry," he laughed. "I haven't given you a chance to speak. Can I help it if I'm such a sparkling conversationalist?"

_Sparkling_, who uses adjectives like that? It was as if he were unable to speak in prosaic language. If she examined his way of talking with a keen ear and a good head for accents she might have had a better idea of what era and country he was from.

"It's only fair," she shrugged away the rest of her thoughts. "I said a lot the last time."

"Do you really think that?" he asked, calling her out of etiquette and into something familiar.

"Sure," she held her distance. "There's no harm in it."

"_No harm_," he said. "No _harm_, well what if there was harm in it?"

"What do you mean?" She felt her stomach fill with rocks.

"You yourself have been harmed tonight have you not?" His lips thinned into something sardonic. To her annoyance, he tried to cover it up with compassion, like a wild dog bearing its teeth into a grin.

"Force Majeure," she excused flippantly.

"Right," he agreed. "Compulsion. Even with vervain, and stakes, and magic rings, _you'll_ always be _vulnerable_ to the supernatural."

"You know who you're like," he snapped his fingers suddenly a few inches from the side of her face. "That... that, well, I've just forgotten the name." He burst out laughing. "Perhaps you'll know it. He's hiding behind a tapestry, watching... watching a man on the other side. The man on the other side, well, he can't see it- he can't see a thing, but! But he's the one who does it." He raised his hand up and brought it down like a thunderclap. "_Spears," _his S's were drawn long and harsh, like filled cans being dragged behind a car. "_Spears _right though...right though it both."

Adela felt something cold _slide _up her spin. She turned to look at him in a mixture of fear and surprise. Purple and green spots flickered in her vision, and she knew her time to be here was almost up.

"That's uh-that's…" she spoke shallowly and blinked, trying to remember where that scene was from. She knew it of course, but the name escaped from her as soon as he'd mentioned it. "I forgot too."

"Lethologica," he smiled and smiled. "It's always just on the tip of our tongues."

…

Caroline put her hand over her face, beneath it she could see the broken picture frame of a sunset over Crater Lake. Her grandfather had boughten it the last time she visited Oregon, almost 20 years ago. It'll be hard to explain that, she thought moving her hand from her face to her hair. In front of her, Tyler was staring. His neck thrust back as if someone had punched him in the mouth. Caroline flicked a lock of hair to the top of her head. When she took a step forward the crunch of glass made her pause, and Tyler was still looking like he was ready to cut and run any minute now.

"I'm not a werewolf _okay_?" She said taking a softer tone like she was placating a frightened animal.

He gathered himself quickly, leaping to his feet, and Caroline braced herself by force of circumstance.

"What are you then?" he asked bewildered.

"I'm-I'm a vampire," she raised her arms parallel, then let them fall as the truth spilled out.

"What?" Tyler said astonished and found the poise to lean forward as if she had spoken very quietly and there were more secrets to be told.

"I said I'm a vampire _okay?_" Caroline repeated. "That's it."

"_That's it?" _he said in a near shout. "You can't just announce you're a vampire and say _that's it!"_

"Well-" she brought her hands up again, she did this a lot when she had trouble figuring out what to say, but she stopped when she heard a noise coming from the other room. Tyler must have heard it too, with his new werewolf powers, because he came a little closer and was staring at the opening to her bedroom.

"Oh god," Caroline was in her room in an instant. "Oh god, your up! It's almost been an entire day!"

On her bed, bleary-eyed and covered in a cold sweat Adela Gilbert was keeled over with whisps of hair all up around her skull. She struck her own temple and let out a groan.

"What-" she started but covered her mouth up quickly as if she felt something bad coming up.

"See Tyler," Caroline said with a forceful smile. "I told you she was alive!"

"But that doesn't make sense," he cried. "I'm still a werewolf! And you can only get the curse by killing someone!"

Adela pressed her fists against her ears.

"What's wrong with you?" Caroline asked, ignoring Tyler for the time being.

"I, I think I'm hungover," she maundered. "Last night was the first time I've ever had alcohol."

"You're not going to throw up are you?" Caroline prepared herself to toss the younger girl into the bathroom.

"I don't-"

"Hey!" Tyler yelled. "What the hell is going on?!"

Adela put her hands on her head again, but Caroline was looking at Tyler extremely carefully now as if she'd just come across a land mine and was trying to find a way to get around it without setting it off.

"Tyler," she said in a serious and sympathizing voice. "You killed Adela...but she-she came back to life."

"What," he said lowly. "I told you not to lie."

"You know I'm telling the truth," Caroline wasn't afraid of him, but there was no reason to go poking at a sleeping bear. His violent temper wasn't something she wanted to hear or deal with in any fashion.

"Yes it's true," Adela brought up her hand with the Gilbert ring. "This ring brings me back every time I get killed by the supernatural."

"This has happened before?" He asked.

"Once, well, twice now," She mulled over her words. "And, uh, sorry about stabbing you, I was compelled you see…"

"Compelled?"

"He doesn't know you're a vampire?" Adela asked Caroline.

"No, he _knows_, but I haven't told him about all the," she waved her hands; "abilities."

"What abilities?" Tyler pressed.

"Well," Caroline relented. "Besides healing, and super speed, and super strength, there's also the ability to… well, make someone do something, anything really, within human capacity."

"You compelled her?"

"No, no," this was exactly what Caroline hadn't wanted, now Tyler had to know there were other vampires in the vicinity. "This other, older, vampire did it."

"Why?" He asked, then; "how many other vampires are there?"

"3 or 4," she tried to be as vague as possible. "I don't really know okay!"

"They're dangerous then," he said. "They compelled Adela to kill me."

"No, only one of them did that," Caroline corrected him. "And it wasn't to kill you it was to turn you into a werewolf."

"Why?"

"We don't know!"

"Who's we?"

"Just me, Adela, and well," Caroline hesitated. "Elena and Bonnie know, but they're not involved in anything."

"Listen," he said candidly. "I'm freaking out here."

She was too, Damon was going to kill her for letting him know this much. Beside her, Adela was gripping the sheets and they shared a frazzled look that said, well what do we now? And Caroline wasn't sure in the slightest. Omitting all and any information on the Salvator's was a must, Damon really would kill Tyler if he thought he was a threat, just like he did to Mason. Oh yes, and there was that too, Mason. If Tyler ever learned that who knows what he'd do. Especially now when his emotions were heightened.

"Tyler, you can't tell anyone, ok, not about you not about me, " Caroline began. "No one will understand. I want to tell you about my mom and yours and the founding families and the council, but I need you to promise me first that no one will find out about us. This is life and death Tyler."

"I have no one else to tell," he spoke ruefully. "I'm alone in this."

Caroline couldn't help but be thankful for that. At the very least, it was one less thing to worry about.

...

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* * *

**A/n: It can be argued that the ring can't bring back someone killed by an "untriggered" werewolf, but for the sake of this fic I'm going to say it can since killing someone is what activates the curse in the first place. **

**Also, I know I said less jumping around but I just loved writing Caroline, although I think it took a bit away from the quality so...**

**Okay, something I brought up in this chapter, in case you didn't pick it up Jenna never stabbed herself, so Elena and Stefan never broke up meaning that they all realized quite early that she was missing and went right away, because really can you imagine Stefan or Damon being like "Oh well it's already so dark and late- Let's just save her tomorrow!" Haha, no I can't either. Anyways that means that Elena hasn't yet had the chance to meet Elijah, and Trevor is still alive too. **

**I cut some scenes that didn't fit or didn't add anything, unfortunately, that's made this chapter a little shorter. **

**By the way, if you didn't get what characters Kol was talking about they were Hamlet and Polonius, Act 3 scene 4. **


End file.
